


until we meet again

by peachenbaek (orphan_account)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Blood and Gore, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Minor Character Death, Train to Busan!AU, it's not hardcore but just in case you're sensitive to this kinda stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 20:16:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10951947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/peachenbaek
Summary: Like minutes ticking down the hour, pieces keep falling apart, one by one, until all that's left is rubble.[Train to Busan!AU]





	until we meet again

**Author's Note:**

> \- title taken from [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrhAuEeyCao) beautiful song  
> \- i really did not intend for this to end up as the 9.4k long piece of trash it is i sincerely apologize  
> \- try not to throw up from confusion while reading this bc i know i did

_seoul_

_08:32 a.m._

_the king of clubs_

 

“Sehunnie!” Lu Han slipped a pair of shiny, black Oxfords on, one finger tucked into the back of his shoe. “Hurry up, sweetie; our train’s leaving at nine, whether we’re there or not.”

As he waited for a response, Lu Han picked up Sehun’s pink Hello Kitty backpack and rummaged through it. Sehun’s comics? Check. Sehun’s apple juice? Check. Sehun’s coloring book, complete with a 64-pack of crayons and matching color pencils? Check.

Sehun?

“Sehun!” he shouted again, his voice echoing down the long hallway. He frowned and tapped a toe against the lacquered hardwood floor. “Sehunnie, are you done getting ready yet? If we miss this train, we won’t be able to see Mommy until tomorrow.”

When his question was met with more silence, Lu Han slung the backpack over his shoulder and trudged over to Sehun’s room. “Sehun,” he sing-songed, knocking his knuckles against the bedroom door. “What’s taking so long?”

Sehun looked up from the pile of clothing strewn haphazardly on the floor. With his lips pressed together in a tight line and his arms crossed huffily across his chest, Lu Han forgot for a moment that he was looking at his seven year old son and not a fifty year old mortgage banker. “I can’t find the jacket Mommy gave to me for my birthday last year,” he answered in a shaky voice. “I’ve looked through every part of my closet, and it’s not there.”

Lu Han felt his chest tighten. He gave Sehun a wide, sympathetic smile, tried to make it as convincing as possible. “Sweetie, that jacket doesn’t fit you anymore,” he said gently. “You grew out of it, remember? You’re a big boy now, you can’t keep wearing clothes that’s too small for you.”

“But, I want my jacket,” Sehun said slowly, the corners of his lips turning down.

Lu Han’s smile faltered. “When we come back from your mother’s, I can buy you a new jacket, one that’s bigger and prettier, okay? I have plenty of money for it, so--”

“I don’t want a new jacket!” Sehun shouted, uncrossing his arms and balling his hands into fists. “I want the jacket Mommy gave me!”

Lu Han licked his lips nervously, because Sehun was looking at him with those big, brown eyes now, a heartbreaking mixture of anger and devastation swirling around in the irises. “Sehun,” he said softly. “I know you miss Mommy a lot.”

Sehun didn’t answer, just stared down at his bare feet. Lu Han would’ve thought that Sehun was about to cry, if it weren’t for the fact that Sehun didn’t cry. Sehun ranted and screamed and whined, but he didn’t cry. He was much too stubborn for that.

“That’s why we’re going to see her this weekend-- because I know you miss her, and this is my birthday present to you.” Lu Han kneeled down on one knee so that he was face to face with Sehun. “But, we can’t visit Mommy if we miss the train, right? So, how about you choose a different jacket for now, and I can help you find the jacket when we come back and have more time?”

Sehun stuck his bottom lip out obstinately before grabbing one of the hoodies scattered on top of his bed and throwing it on. “Okay,” he mumbled, taking his backpack from Lu Han and slinging it on over his shoulders. “We’ll see Mommy soon, right?”

Lu Han wrapped his hand around Sehun’s smaller one, pulling the child out of his bedroom and into the hallway. “Of course, Sehunnie,” he said with a smile, swinging Sehun’s arm back and forth wildly. Sehun giggled, the anger in his expression fading away. “The train to Busan only takes three hours.”

  


_09:08 a.m._

 

Lu Han woke up to an insistent tugging on his shirt sleeve and a sudden bump in the train’s smooth ride. “Hngh?” he hummed groggily, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and turning to the seat beside him. “Sehun? Is something wrong?”

Sehun shook his head. “I have to pee.”

Lu Han furrowed his brow, the question of _Already?_ ready to roll off his tongue. Then, he caught sight of the crumpled up juicebox sitting on Sehun’s lap. “Oh. _Oh_.” He picked the juicebox up and stuffed it into Sehun’s pink backpack, reminding himself to bring more juice next time. “Alright, let’s go find you a toilet.”

Unfortunately, if the man leaning on the door was any indication, the nearest washroom was already occupied. Lu Han clutched Sehun’s hand as he approached the stranger. “Excuse me,” he greeted with a trained smile. “Is anyone in there? My son needs to use the restroom.” He lifted the hand that was holding onto Sehun and gestured at him, as if the man needed help identifying said son. Sehun just blinked, looking a little confused as he mumbled, “I have to pee,” under his breath.

The man frowned. “Sorry, it’s occupied,” he said. “My fiance’s in there because he had some bad kimbap. I mean, I told him not to eat it, but he said that he just _had_ to have it--”

“Chanyeol!” a voice from inside the washroom hissed. “Shut up!”

The man-- Chanyeol-- rolled his eyes. “Right, and now he’s mad at _me_ ,” he whispered lowly to Sehun, bending his knees a little so that he was closer to the child. Sehun giggled.

“Sorry, darling,” Chanyeol said in a sweet voice to the door. “Take your time, take your time.” He turned to Lu Han, knitting his eyebrows together apologetically. “You understand, right? I mean, I think the restroom in car nine is open.”

Lu Han nodded, even if there was a little part of him that was irritated from having to walk a few cars down just to take Sehun to the bathroom. Sehun nodded too, whispering, “Good luck with your kimbap, ahjussi,” to the door before following Baekhyun to the next car. Lu Han burst into snickers at that, covering his mouth with the hand that wasn’t clasped around Sehun. With the one that was, he held Sehun’s hand a little tighter.

  


_09:10 a.m._

_the ace of diamonds_

 

“Hey, ace, I get that you feel the need to practice-- I mean, I would too, if I were you-- but can you keep it down over there? Some people would rather not spend a five hour long train ride listening to you drop a ball fifty times in a row.”

Baekhyun pouted, setting his baseball down on the empty seat beside him. The gaggle of boys around them cackled with laughter. “Yah, the ride's only three hours long,” Baekhyun grumbled. “And I _never_ dropped the ball.”

Before Jongdae could reply with some attempt to refute Baekhyun’s claims-- as that was how most of their conversations went-- the compartment door opened with a clunky _bang_. Everyone in the train car turned their heads to the noise. A skinny, wide-eyed kid poked his head from the edge of the door. A blonde-haired man followed soon after, polite smile affixed on his lips. “Sorry to bother you,” the man said, not sounding very sorry. “Is the washroom in this car free? My son needs to use the restroom.”

Baekhyun couldn’t help but stare at the man for what was probably a little longer than normal. He’d never seen a dad that young before-- he had assumed that he was the kid’s older brother at first. “Yeah, it’s free,” he answered finally, giving both the man and his son a friendly smile as he pointed at the restroom. “Go ahead, be our guest.”

The man returned the smile and nodded a silent thanks before pulling the kid along to the end of the car, where the restroom was. As the two of them piled into the room together, and slid the door shut, Yixing cooed from the seat behind Baekhyun. “Cute kid,” he gushed.

“Cute guy,” Baekhyun said absentmindedly, picking his baseball back up and fidgeting with the worn cover.

Jongdae just stared at Baekhyun, looking deeply offended.

  


_09:13 a.m._

_the two of hearts_

 

The restroom door _thunk_ ed open, a pale, grim-faced Kyungsoo stepping out with wobbly knees. Chanyeol’s felt his lips stretch into a wide smile. “Hey, Soo,” he greeted enthusiastically. “You okay?”

“No,” he groaned. “That kimbap fucked my stomach up.”

“Well, I did tell you not to eat it, didn’t I?”  
  
Kyungsoo glared at him pointedly.

Chanyeol cleared his throat. “Anyway, let’s go back to our seats?”

As Kyungsoo looped his arm through Chanyeol’s and wordlessly pulled him towards their seats, Chanyeol felt his grin grow. “So, this cute kid came by earlier,” Chanyeol said.

Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I know, I heard you blabbing our entire life story to him.” He looked up at Chanyeol with a frown. “Seriously, there’s a thing called ‘boundaries’?”

“Boundaries? What are those? Can you eat them?”

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes, mumbling “stupid” under his breath as he unlinked his arm from Chanyeol’s and slid into his seat. As he took the seat next to him, Chanyeol swore he saw him smile. “Anyway,” Chanyeol continued slowly. “It got me thinking.”

“About…?”

“About, like, kids?”

Kyungsoo’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, my God, no!”

Chanyeol blinked. “Well, damn, I know it was early to ask, but--”

“I’m not talking about that, you idiot,” Kyungsoo interjected sharply. He pointed at the television screen hanging above them, his eyes glued to the screen. “Look.”

Chanyeol followed Kyungsoo’s arm and squinted at the screen. Although the sound was muted, he could tell the news was playing by the bright, orange headline plastered on the bottom of the screen-- “Citizens Outraged Over Police Control of Riots at Universities”. He wrinkled his nose at the footage of policemen in full gear blasting crowds of people with hoses. “Holy shit,” he commented with furrowed brows. “What the fuck is going on?”

Kyungsoo shook his head. “I have no idea.”

Chanyeol wasn’t sure if he was imagining the fearful quiver of his voice or not, because Kyungsoo didn’t get _scared_ . Kyungsoo was the level-headed, rational one, who always had an explanation for things, things that usually scared _Chanyeol_. “I’m sure everything’s fine,” Chanyeol said quickly, slinging his arm around Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “I mean, people will riot over everything these days.”

Kyungsoo didn’t answer, the crease in his forehead deepening.

“Hey,” Chanyeol continued, turning to face Kyungsoo. “We’re fine. The news always exaggerates everything. Nothing’s gonna hurt you here. And, even if there was something that could get to you on a _moving train_ , I’ll protect you, okay?” He held his fists up and scowled at the television screen, as if he were ready to fight it for scaring Kyungsoo, _his_  Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes again. Still, he leaned his head against Chanyeol’s shoulder and closed his eyes, his body relaxing visibly. “Don’t be dumb,” he mumbled. “You couldn’t fight off a butterfly, let alone whatever that crowd’s rioting about.”

“Nah, for you?” Chanyeol grinned. “For you, I would fight off _anything_.”

  


_09:17 a.m._

 

The second time Lu Han woke up from his nap, it was because of a bloodcurdling scream.

“Sehun?” he said immediately, looking around with wide eyes. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw that Sehun was still seated next to him, a Spiderman comic opened up on his lap. “Oh, thank God,” he murmured. “I thought that scream had been--”

Another shriek ripped through the air, effectively cutting Lu Han’s sentence off. The sound had sounded far away and muffled at first, as if it were in a different train car, but it was definitely closer now. Sehun stared up at Lu Han, as if he were waiting for an explanation that neither of them had. “W-What is that?” Sehun asked in a fearful voice.

Before Lu Han could answer with a truthful “I don’t know”, the compartment door burst open. A black-haired woman staggered in. She was walking with strange, jagged movements, and her ripped clothes were caked in a blood red substance. Every person in the train car was silent now, staring at the woman with either concern or confusion, or some mix of both. The woman limped forward, approaching a train attendant. Instinctively, Lu Han wrapped an arm around Sehun.

The train attendant gave the woman a worried look, before clicking her radio on. “Sir, there’s a passenger in car twelve right now who needs medical attention,” she said into the receiver. “She has several wounds on her arms and legs, and—”

Suddenly, the woman lunged at the train attendant, mouth latched onto her exposed neck. The train attendant screamed, blood staining her previously impeccable blue uniform. Sehun screamed too, the noise muffled against his father’s shirt sleeve, snapping Lu Han out of his trance. Without an ounce of hesitation, he scooped Sehun into his arm and ran away from the commotion of the train car.

“Wait, we can’t just leave!” Sehun shrieked, pummeling his fists against Lu Han’s chest. “You have to help the train lady! She’s in trouble, she needs help!”  
  
“No, Sehunnie,” Lu Han snapped as he pushed through a compartment door and past a string of passengers. “You don’t always have to help others; sometimes, you just need to help yourself.”

“No! You’re wrong! Mommy says you _always_ have to help others!” he cried out, wriggling in Lu Han’s grip. “This is why Mommy left you-- you don’t care about _anyone_ but yourself!”

The words stung immensely, but Lu Han knew he was doing the right thing. After all, he would rather Sehun hate him his entire life for this one choice than lose him forever. “That’s not true,” Lu Han replied under his breath. “I care about you.”

  


_09:18 a.m._

 

“Okay, would you rather watch your parents have sex every night forever or join in one time to make it stop?”

Baekhyun gave Yixing a strange look. “Dude, what the fu--”

Their compartment door slid open noisily. The blonde-haired man from earlier burst through with his son in his arms. “Run!” the man shouted as he made it to the end of the train car and struggled to get the door open. “Don’t ask, just run!”

More people streamed into the compartment, screams echoing behind them. Baekhyun stumbled out of his seat at fast at he could, not sure as to what was going on, but not really wanting to find out either. “Shit, why the fuck are we running?” Baekhyun asked as he sprinted through the train car, shouting over the commotion.

Jongdae pushed him forward. “Didn’t you hear the guy?” he hissed into his ear. “Don’t ask!”

A pained scream ripped through the air. Baekhyun turned to face the noise and felt his own scream catch in his throat. A pale woman wearing a bloodied version of the blue train attendant uniform had her arms wrapped around Yixing and her teeth sunk into the juncture of his neck. Yixing struggled violently as he tried to push the woman off, blood seeping into the fresh whites of his varsity letterman jacket. “Yixing!” Baekhyun shrieked, finally finding his own voice. He grabbed a baseball bat and tried to run back to where his teammate writhed around on the floor, until he felt something slam against his chest

“Jongdae, get out of my way,” Baekhyun cried out, swinging his bat around in the air. “We need to help Yixing, he’s going to die if we don’t do some--”

“Wake the fuck _up_ , Baek,” Jongdae interrupted, shaking Baekhyun by the shoulders. “Can’t you see what this is? He’s already _dead_.”

Baekhyun gaped at Jongdae, peering over at Yixing over his shoulder. His skin had paled drastically in the matter of seconds, as if all the blood and life was suddenly sucked out of his body, and the usual warm browns of his eyes had blanched into a milky white color. His limbs were seizing and twitching strangely, like he didn’t have control over them, like he didn’t have control over his body. It was almost as if he were--

“A zombie,” Baekhyun said in a dazed, disbelieving voice. “He’s a zombie.”

Jongdae rolled his eyes. “No shit, Sherlock,” he snapped. He grabbed a baseball bat of his own and turned Baekhyun’s body back around, pushing him towards the end of the train car. “Now, run!”

  


_09:19 a.m._

 

“Do you have any twos?”

Chanyeol shook his head. “Go fish.”

Kyungsoo huffed as he picked a card up from the stack balanced precariously on Chanyeol’s leg. “I fucking hate this game,” he mumbled angrily.

Chanyeol snorted. “You only say that when you’re losi--”

“Run!” several voices bellowed out from the back of the train car. Chanyeol looked up from his cards curiously. “Everyone, run!”

Kyungsoo peered over the tops of the seats, confused. “What’s going on?”

A crowd of people ran through the aisles, including the man and kid from earlier. Chanyeol grabbed Kyungsoo’s arm protectively, pulled him up. “I don’t know,” he answered uneasily. “But if they’re running away from something, we probably should too.”

Kyungsoo nodded, following Chanyeol’s lead and trailing after the crowd. “What exactly are they running from, though?” he asked, unmistakable fear bleeding into his voice.

“I-- don’t know.”

“Then, what _do_ we fucking know?”

Chanyeol took a deep breath as he tightened his grip on Kyungsoo’s hand. “I know that we’re going to be okay.”

  


_09:29 a.m._

 

 _Ladies and gentleman_ , _we are aware of the situation at hand, and our route has been changed accordingly. This train will be stopping at the Daegu station, where the military has been dispatched and you will all be escorted to safety. We will not be going to Busan. I repeat, this train will not be going to Busan._  


 

 

 

_09:30 a.m._

 

Sehun tugged at Lu Han’s sleeve. “Does this mean we can’t see Mommy?” he asked in a small voice.

Lu Han frowned, because he knew _exactly_ what the announcement meant. If anything, it meant that the whole train was going to be put in quarantine. Sehun couldn’t be put in quarantine-- he wouldn’t let it happen. “No, Sehun, that’s not what this means,” he answered soothingly. “It just means our visit to Mommy is a little-- delayed, alright?”

Sehun gave him an unconvinced pout. Lu Han sighed. “Look, I promise that I’ll get you to your mother’s no matter what, with or without me.”

“With,” Sehun said immediately. “I can’t go without you. Don’t make me go without you-- promise that you won’t leave me.”

Lu Han smiled, ruffling Sehun’s hair with a hand. “Of course, sweetie,” he replied. “I promise.”

Although he pretty much lied for a living, there was nothing Lu Han hated more than lying to Sehun.

  


_chunan_

_09:33 a.m._

 

“So, what does your dad do for a living?”

Sehun beamed, his face brightening visibly. Chanyeol almost cooed at how adorable he looked. “He’s a fund manager,” he answered proudly.

Chanyeol raised an eyebrow. “So, he’s a bloodsucker?” he mumbled into Kyungsoo’s ear. Kyungsoo gave Chanyeol a sharp glare. Chanyeol returned it, pairing it with a stuck out tongue. “Where is your dad anyway?” Chanyeol asked Sehun sweetly, smiling at the child. “Wasn’t he just with you a minute ago?”

Sehun furrowed his brow. “I don’t know,” he answered in a mumble. “He just said he had to make a call, went to the other car, and told me to stay here.”

Chanyeol couldn’t help but frown at that. The living passengers on the train were all currently situated in one locked train car, safely isolated from the zombies on the other side. If Sehun’s dad had to make that call in a whole new car, where no one else could hear him, what the hell was he trying to hide?

“Hey, if his dad doesn’t come back, can we keep him?” Chanyeol whispered to Kyungsoo, pointing at Sehun.

Kyungsoo glared at him again. “Park Chanyeol, don’t even think about it.” He crossed his arms across his chest. “When we get a kid, it’s going to be a girl.”

Chanyeol grinned, because Kyungsoo hadn’t said _if_ , he had said _when_ . _When_ they got a kid, _when_ they got married, _when_ they bought a house.

 _When_ they got out of here alive.

  


_daegu_

_10:45 a.m._

 

Finally, finally, _finally_ , they arrived at the station in Daegu. Baekhyun tapped his baseball bat on the ground as he waited for the train to slow to a complete stop. Jongdae clasped a hand over Baekhyun’s. “Stop fidgeting, you’re shaking the whole train car,” he chided chastely.

Baekhyun, for the life of him, couldn’t see how Jongdae was so damn composed during this entire ordeal. The two of them-- along with Zitao and Jongin-- had been the only members of their baseball team to make it into the safe car (of course, he used the word “safe” _very_ loosely). While Baekhyun couldn’t stop staring mournfully at the car next to them through the glass window on the compartment door, hoping to catch a glimpse of a former teammate or even just their varsity jackets, Jongdae did everything but that. He admired the scenery rolling past them from the train windows, practiced his starting swing with his bat, even talked to the cute kid who had walked into their train car earlier that day. Baekhyun, admittedly, was a little unsettled. Their best friends had just been brutally murdered and turned into mindless, flesh-eating zombies, and Jongdae couldn’t even _try_ to acknowledge it?

“How can you act so calm right now?” Baekhyun snapped. “Are you just not aware of what’s going on, or do you somehow think that ignoring it will make the problem go away?”

Jongdae looked genuinely hurt by the question. Baekhyun didn’t feel too bad, because this was the most emotion he had shown all day. “Are you being serious right now?” he asked in return, blinking at Baekhyun with a wounded look in his eyes. “What, did you want me to cry my eyes out like Zitao and Jongin? Or, did you want me to wallow in my own despair like you?”

Baekhyun felt his eyebrows scrunch into a glare. “No, I want you to deal with this situation like an actual _person_ and not a robot,” he replied, his voice getting louder. People were starting to stare now, whispers starting up about how inconsiderate high schoolers could be.

“What do you _think_ I’m doing?” Jongdae asked with a frown. “I think the last thing Yixing and the others want is for us to cling onto their deaths when we could be keeping ourselves alive instead. So, stop fucking moping around like this and accept the fact that they’re _gone_ , alright?” Just as Jongdae paused to take a breath, the train stopped. “And, lower your voice, Baek, you’re scaring the kids.”

Baekhyun turned his head and found that the cute kid from earlier was hugging his father’s side, staring up at Baekhyun with wide, unblinking eyes. Jongin and Zitao were looking at him the same way, although, to be fair, they had had that look permanently affixed on their faces since this whole thing started. “Sorry,” he mumbled to no one in particular-- mostly Jongdae, if he was being honest.

Jongdae, as usual, seemed to read Baekhyun’s mind. “Don’t be,” he said as he looped his arm through Baekhyun’s and pulled him towards the now open train doors. “We’ve all been through a lot today.”

 _That_ , Baekhyun thought as he streamed out the doors with Jongdae, _was an understatement._

  


_10:49 a.m._

 

“Daddy, where are we going?” Sehun asked in a puzzled voice. “Everyone else is going that way.”

Lu Han glanced over his shoulder as he pushed past more warning tape and traffic cones. A few people were looking at him strangely for straying from the path, but no one seemed concerned enough to follow him. Good-- the friend he had called on the train had said that he would only be able to smuggle Sehun and him out of quarantine. “We’re taking a safer way,” Lu Han said as he turned a corner.

Sehun frowned. “Why aren’t we telling the others?”

“We’re, uh, the only ones who can go this way,” Lu Han answered distractedly.

“How come?” Sehun asked. “Why can’t we just bring more people with us?”

“That’s not how it works,” Lu Han said as he quickened his pace. He just _knew_ Sehun was going to make them go back to help the others, but he was planning on getting to where his friend had told him to go before that happened. “It’s complicated.”

Sehun’s frown deepened. “No, it’s not,” he insisted stubbornly. “You’re supposed to help others whenever you get the chance to.”

“Not when it puts your own life in danger, you’re not,” Lu Han muttered. He let out a breath of relief when he turned another corner and saw the exit of the station, warm and welcoming sunlight streaming in through the opening. There were a few soldiers waiting for him, as his friend had said there’d be, but something seemed to be...off. Their skin was unusually pale against the dark green camo of their uniforms, and they kept pacing around each other like they all had bad limps. It wasn’t until one of the soldiers turned around so that Lu Han could see how starved and hollow their faces looked, eyes sunken and cheekbones gaunt, that he realized what he was looking at.

“Sehun, run!” he shouted out, pulling hard on his son’s hand as he turned around and away from the soldiers. Sehun yelped, attempting to keep up with Lu Han’s pace. He tripped over a piece of rubble, falling face first onto the ground.

Lu Han swore under his breath when he caught sight of the dizzying gash on Sehun’s knee. “Hang on, sweetie, I got you,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. He scooped him up from the ground and started running again, Sehun sitting bridal-style in his arms.

As they neared the entrance of the station, where their train was waiting just a minute’s run away, Lu Han recognized a couple of high school boys wearing varsity jackets running beside him. “Fuck,” one of them panted out, who Lu Han recognized as the boy who had pointed him to the bathroom earlier that day. “I thought this couldn’t get any worse, but now they have guns?”

Sehun whimpered a little in Lu Han’s arm. One of the other boys glared at the one who had spoken up. “Shut up, Baek,” he hissed. “It’s not like they know how to use them in the first place.” This didn’t calm Sehun down much, but Lu Han appreciated the effort.

When they finally reached the entrance, the high schoolers pushed the double doors open and held them for the frantic crowd running through. When everyone was finally past the doors, they slammed the doors closed. “Shit,” one of them shouted out, eyes scanning the door carefully. “Is there no lock for this thing?”

“No way,” another person replied, feeling every part of the door for a lock. When he didn’t find one, he groaned. “We’re just going to have to hold them back ourselves until everyone’s on the train.” He leaned against the door, gestured for his teammates to do the same thing, then looked straight at Lu Han. “Hey, ahjussi, help us out, will ya? Just the four of us won’t be enough to keep the door closed.”

Lu Han swallowed nervously. “I-- I have a kid with me, I don’t think I can--”

“I’ll help,” a deep voice spoke up from behind him. A tall man, who Lu Han recognized as the Chanyeol guy from the bathroom door, stepped towards the door and pressed himself against it.

“Me too,” the man who had stood next to him the whole train ride added.

Chanyeol frowned. “No, Kyungsoo, go to the train with everyone else,” he insisted.

Kyungsoo furrowed his brow. “But, I--”

“Just go!” he interjected loudly.

He stared at Chanyeol for a few seconds, dumbfounded, then turned and ran towards the train like everyone else. Chanyeol turned his head and stared Lu Han, his face looking like he had just eaten something unpleasantly sour. “Hey, mister fund manager, you gonna help?”

Lu Han looked down at Sehun, then up at the doors. He could see zombies in ripped military uniforms approaching through the glass windows beside the door, and they were approaching _fast_. “I can’t,” he said desperately. “My kid, I have to--”

“Baekhyun,” one of the kids interrupted. “Take the kid and go.”

Baekhyun stared at the other boy in disbelief. “Jongdae, what are you--”

  
“Take the kid and go!” Jongdae repeated louder. “Do it so that his dad can help us bar the door! Your leg is hurt, anyway-- you won’t be helpful.”

Baekhyun gnawed at his bottom lip before stepping away from the door and holding his arms out to Lu Han. “I’ll take good care of him,” Baekhyun reassured Lu Han, his voice cracking a little.

Lu Han blinked down at Sehun, who was shaking his head frantically. “No!” he shrieked. “You promised me! You said you wouldn’t leave! You said--”

A loud _thump_ hit the door, blood smearing on glass as the zombies crashed themselves against the windows. Chanyeol grimaced as he struggled to help hold the doors back. “Just give him the kid, before the goddamn doors break down!”

Lu Han swallowed again, then carefully handed Sehun over to Baekhyun. Sehun screamed, thrashing in Baekhyun’s arms. “You can’t do this, you can’t just leave me, you promised!” He started sobbing into Baekhyun’s neck, continuing his tantrum in incoherent mumbles. Lu Han took a deep breath and pressed his back against the door, closing his eyes so that he didn’t have to look at Sehun. That was the first time he'd ever seen Sehun cry in his life.

  


_10:56 a.m._

 

“Everything’s going to be fine,” Baekhyun whispered into Sehun’s ear, smoothing the hair on the nape of his neck. “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fff-fuck!”

He winced as pain flared up in his ankle, his limp worsening. The man running in front of him turned around, his large, round eyes wide with concern. “Woah, you okay?” he asked, running back to where Baekhyun was jogging with wobbly legs. “And...why is Sehun with you?”

“I’m helping him get on the train while his dad’s holding the zombies off,” Baekhyun answered in a pained voice, grimacing as he continued to limp. “But, fuck, I hurt my leg when I was running away.” It was stupid, actually, the way he had gotten hurt. Jongdae had told him to tie his shoelaces as soon as they got off the train and Baekhyun had ignored the warning, only to trip over his own feet five minutes later. The thought made lump rise in Baekhyun’s throat, because he already missed Jongdae _so_ much.

The man gave Baekhyun a worried look. “Do you need any help? It looks pretty serious.”

Baekhyun opened his mouth to answer, but a pained groan left his mouth instead. The man immediately took Sehun from his arms and put an arm around Baekhyun’s waist for support. “Thanks,” Baekhyun mumbled, a little embarrassed over the fact that a grown man barely his height had to help him walk. “Who’s the one that made you leave?”

For a moment, the man looked as if he was smiling. It disappeared in a matter of seconds, though, replaced with a stricken frown. “My fiance,” he answered hesitatingly. “He’s ridiculous, he thinks that I’m some kind of fragile flower that’ll break as soon as I hit the floor. He’s always trying to ‘protect’ me from danger, when he can barely open a heavy door without outside help.”

Despite himself, Baekhyun smiled half-heartedly. “That’s cute.”

This time, the man did smile, the corners of his lips quirking up just slightly. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I guess it is.” He cleared his throat. “How about you? Who made you leave?”

Baekhyun frowned at the memory. “My _supposed_ best friend,” he answered in a grumble. “Jongdae, the short one with the curly hair and baseball bat.” Speaking of baseball bats, where the hell did Baekhyun’s go?

Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow. “Huh, that’s interesting,” he said to no one in particular.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Kyungsoo said quickly. “I just-- I had assumed that was your boyfriend the entire train ride.”

Baekhyun’s cheeks heated up. “W-What?” he sputtered. “That’s gross, I would never go out with Jongdae.” As if on cue, his sprained ankle began throbbing again. “ _Gross_ ,” he added for extra emphasis, gritting his teeth and ignoring the pain.

“Aw, look at you kids,” Kyungsoo said with a ghost of a smirk on his face. “Young love is adorable. Ask him out on a date when this mess ends, okay?”

Baekhyun felt his stomach drop. With the way the day was going he wasn’t sure this nightmare would _ever_ end.

  


_10:58 a.m._

 

Chanyeol blamed himself, really. He was the one who had insisted that Kyungsoo come with him to ask his parents in Busan for their blessing before they got married, even though the wedding was only a month away. He shouldn’t have made Kyungsoo come. Maybe if he had just manned up and visited his parents by himself, Kyungsoo wouldn’t be in trouble. He would’ve stayed home, away from this death trap. God, if Chanyeol ended up responsible for Kyungsoo getting hurt, or, worse, _dying_ \--

“Yo, Stretch,” said one of the high schoolers (he had introduced himself as Jongdae). “Stop daydreaming, before you kill us all.”

Chanyeol snapped out of his daze, realizing that he wasn’t doing a very good job of holding his portion of the door. “Sorry,” he apologized profusely. “I’m just-- I’m getting so tired.”

Another high schooler, a tan skinned boy with sleepy eyes who Chanyeol didn’t remember the name of, scoffed. “Buddy, we’re _all_ tired.”

“Hey, is that the right car?” Lu Han said suddenly. “Are they going into the right train car?”

Chanyeol glanced up. He felt the pit that had been festering in his stomach all day grow into a fucking black hole. “No,” he breathed out. “Fuck, no, that’s not one of the safe cars, that’s a car with those-- those _things_ in them. Someone has to tell them, I-- I have to tell them, I--”

“Oh, no, Stretch,” Jongdae interrupted. “Don’t you _dare_ run off when we’re already having trouble keeping the door at bay. If you leave--”

“What? What happens if I leave?” Chanyeol said loudly. Everyone looked shocked at the outburst. Even Chanyeol was a little stunned at himself. “The doors open? They get out? That’s going to happen eventually, you know -- better it happen now than later, when the train’s leaving without us.”

Lu Han frowned. “He’s got a point,” he said begrudgingly. Chanyeol gave Lu Han a look of surprise and silent thanks.

Jongdae made a face. “So, what, we just let go of the door and _run_?” he asked uneasily. “Seems a little crude, doesn’t it?”

Chanyeol licked his lips. “Well, the solution’s gotta fit the situation, right?” At this point, Chanyeol was so afraid of not being able to get on the train with Kyungsoo that he was willing to try _anything_.

“Fine,” Jongdae acquiesced. “Let me try and bar the doors first.” He picked up the baseball bat his friend must’ve dropped while running away and stared it at with a pained expression before slipping it into the two door handles. “It’ll hold them for a while, but we need to start running immediately, got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Chanyeol said impatiently. “On the count of three?”

Lu Han let out a breath from next to him. “One,” he started counting. Chanyeol took a deep breath. “Two.” He rolled his neck around, listening to the bones crack. “Three."

  


_11:00 a.m._

 

 _We have gained recent intel telling us that Busan’s situation is stabilized. Due to this new information, we will be continuing to our destination of Busan. I repeat, this train_ will _be going to Busan._

 

 

 

_11:02 a.m._

 

Baekhyun had done some pretty dumb things in his life, most of which involved either alcohol or badly timed party games. This, however, had to be the absolute, number one, dumbest thing he had ever done-- and it didn't even spring from a drunken game of truth or dare.

“Oh, God, how did this even happen?” Baekhyun muttered under his breath. “How did we walk into the wrong _train car_?”

Sehun began whimpering at his panicked tone. Kyungsoo instantly picked him up from where he was sitting on the toilet and began patting his back. “It’s fine, this is fine,” Kyungsoo said reassuringly, a strained smile on his lips. “We can fix this. We just need to call one of the guys, and they can come help us, and...” His smile faded quickly. “And...Chanyeol’s phone...is all out of juice.”

Baekhyun groaned. “Fuck, and I know for a _fact_ that the other boys left their phones, too.” He rubbed at his temples. “Great-- we’re going to die in a train bathroom.”

“Stop,” Kyungsoo hissed, covering Sehun’s ears. “Don’t say that.”

Sehun swatted Kyungsoo’s hands away from his ears. “Why don’t we just call Daddy?” he asked with a frown.

Baekhyun stared at Sehun. “Wait, what?”

“Daddy always keeps his phone in his pocket,” Sehun elaborated slowly, as if Baekhyun were the child here. “Why don’t we just call him for help?”

Kyungsoo let out an amazed laugh. “Kid, you’re a genius.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and unlocked it. “What’s your dad’s number?”

 

_11:05 a.m._

 

“They’re in car nine,” Lu Han reported in a shaky voice, pulling his phone away from his ear. “Stuck in the bathroom."

Only four of them made it onto the train. Jongin, the high schooler with the sleepy eyes, hadn’t been quick enough, and Zitao, his friend with the dark under eyes, wouldn’t stop crying. If Lu Han were a better person, he probably wouldn’t have been so annoyed with the fact that his sobbing was attracting zombies. Luckily for them, they were in a compartment locked away from the zombies, meaning there was no way they could get hurt unless they unlocked the doors themselves. Unluckily for them, the compartment also happened to be on the other end of the train, a crowd of zombies separating them from the safe car-- from _Sehun_.

Jongdae furrowed his brow. “We’re in car thirteen,” he said. “How the hell are we going to get through three cars filled with zombies with nothing but a baseball bat and our bare hands?”

“You just answered your own question, buddy,” Chanyeol said.

“Are you suggesting that we just brute force our way through a crowd of  _flesh eating monsters_?”

Even though Lu Han found the idea just as far-fetched as Jongdae did, he nodded in agreement with Chanyeol. “My son is in car nine,” he said flatly. “We’re going to car nine.”

Zitao sniffled, wiping his tears away on his jacket, and Jongdae picked his bat up with a sigh. The argument was over.

  


_11:17 a.m._

 

As soon as Chanyeol opened the bathroom door, Kyungsoo leapt into his arms. “Fuck, you’re here,” he sobbed into Chanyeol’s chest. “God, if you ever leave me again, I will-- I will kick your ass so hard that you taste it the morning after.”

Chanyeol chuckled, burying his nose into the crown of Kyungsoo’s head. “I know you will,” he mumbled into his head.

Baekhyun emerged from the restroom a few seconds later, gripping Sehun’s hand like it was a lifeline. Sehun wriggled out of his ironclad hold to jump into Lu Han’s open arms as Baekhyun threw his arms across Jongdae’s shoulders.

“We don’t have much time,” Chanyeol said. He tried to push Kyungsoo off, only to find that he was practically latched onto him. “We held some of them off for now, but we need to get moving immediately if we want to make it to the safe train car.”

Kyungsoo pulled away from Chanyeol reluctantly. “I’m serious, you ass,” he snapped. “If you fucking leave me one more time--”

“You’re going to kick my ass so hard that I taste it the morning after?” Chanyeol finished for him with a grin.

Kyungsoo sniffed. “More or less.”

  


_11:19 a.m._

 

Chanyeol was sure that this was what hell felt like.

“Open the door!” Jongdae screamed, banging his fist on the glass. “Come on, you fucking cowards, let us in! We’re going to die! We have a _child_ with us!”

Baekhyun yanked the baseball bat away from Jongdae’s hand and pushed him aside. He pulled his arm back and swung the bat at the glass door, a loud _bam_ sounding in the car. Kyungsoo winced as Baekhyun continued swinging at the glass and letting out frustrated roars, and Chanyeol held him tighter in his arms. The tiniest crosshairs were appearing on the glass, but it was clear that the door wasn’t going to break anytime soon. Chanyeol could hear the zombies in the other car getting closer, along with the heartbreaking whimpers of Sehun in the background.

“We came so far,” Kyungsoo said in a dull voice. He didn’t sound afraid anymore, just defeated. For some reason, this scared Chanyeol even more. “Only to be, quite literally, stopped at the door.”

Baekhyun swung his bat at the glass again. _Bam_. “Don’t say that,” Chanyeol pleaded. “I promised to protect you, didn’t I? I’m going to protect you, no one will ever hurt you.”

 _Bam_. “What’s the point?” Kyungsoo said. “We’re not going to make it. Clearly, they’re not going to let us in, and we don’t have enough time to break the door down.”

“So, we make time,” Chanyeol insisted. _Bam_ . “We create a distraction.” He paused, an idea popping into his head. “ _I_ create a distraction.”

Kyungsoo’s head whipped up to face Chanyeol, his eyes wide with realization. “Park Chanyeol, you better not be implying what I think you are,” he said angrily. He grabbed at the collar of Chanyeol’s shirt and tugged _hard_ . “Don’t you _dare_ be the hero here, I won’t fucking let you.”

 _Bam bam bam_. The swings were getting more frantic now.

Chanyeol smiled, because at least Kyungsoo sounded like himself again. Kyungsoo scowled. “Don’t just _smile_ at me, you -- you stupid, idiot, dumb, stupid, stupid, stupid--”

His sentence was ripped apart by a scream as soon as Chanyeol sprinted away from Kyungsoo’s grip and towards the approaching zombies. Chanyeol watched as Lu Han held Kyungsoo back and silently thanked him. Maybe he had been a little quick to judge Lu Han at first-- he was a good guy. “Get back here right now, Chanyeol, this isn’t funny!” Kyungsoo shrieked. “You promised that you wouldn’t leave me anymore! I’m-- I’m going to kick your ass! I’ll do it, I swear!”

Chanyeol forced himself to keep his eyes open and look at Kyungsoo-- he wanted him to be the last person he saw before he lost consciousness. “I hate you, Park Chanyeol!” Kyungsoo continued furiously, kicking his feet in the air as he slapped at Lu Han’s arms across his chest. “I hate you so much, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

 _Bam_. “I love you, Kyungsoo,” Chanyeol mumbled back, feeling one of the zombies grab hold of his arm.

The last thing Chanyeol remembered before his vision tunneled into black was the glass door breaking with one final _bam_ and Kyungsoo mouthing “I love you, too,” as fat tears rolled down his cheeks.

  


_11:23 a.m._

 

“You’re kidding,” Baekhyun said in disbelief. “We go through a living _hell_ in those train cars, watching everyone we love die one by one and nearly dying ourselves several times, and you’re kicking us off?”

One of the passengers, a straight-faced man in a somehow still impeccable suit, crossed his arms across his chest. “You five are a liability to this train,” he said in a smooth, professional sounding voice. A few of the other passengers nodded their heads in agreement.

Baekhyun gaped. “I cannot fucking _believe_ \--”

“Baekhyun,” Lu Han said in a low warning voice. Kyungsoo was standing behind him with a blank expression, and Jongdae beside Kyungsoo with a distraught Sehun holding his hand. “Now’s not the time to blow up.”  
  
“No, now’s _exactly_ the time,” he snapped. “Why can’t we fucking stay here? It’s not like we’re infected or anything.”

The man gave Baekhyun a disdainful look. “You’re telling me that every single one of you-- including the kid-- made it through _several_ train cars filled with zombies, and didn’t get bitten once?”

Baekhyun opened his mouth, ready to release another tidal wave of swears and insults, until Lu Han spoke for him. “I know it’s a little hard to believe, but, yes, we did make it through the cars without getting infected,” Lu Han said in a similarly composed voice as the other man. “If you don’t believe us, feel free to check us for any bite marks.”

The other passengers murmured among themselves as they pointed at each of the five of them. They were, no doubt, trying to decide who they wanted to check first, which made Baekhyun feel sick to his stomach. “We want to see the quiet one in the back,” the man said finally.

Baekhyun scoffed, because this whole situation was just so _ridiculous_. “Who, Kyungsoo? Go ahead -- but, I was in the bathroom with him for more than half of the time, so I really don’t think you’ll find anything.”

“Not him,” an elderly woman corrected with a shake of her head. “The _other_ quiet one, the one next to the kid.”

Jongdae’s startled expression was reminiscent of a deer caught in headlights. “W-What?” he stammered, blinking his large eyes quickly. “Why me?”

“If you have nothing to hide, you’d let us check,” someone from the back of the crowd sneered.

Everyone aside from the five of them murmured their assent. “Check underneath his jacket!” a voice shouted out.

Baekhyun watched in horror as a man from the crowd advanced towards Jongdae and started pulling his varsity jacket off. Sehun wailed and continued to grip Jongdae’s hand tightly, only letting go when the man forcibly detached their hands. “Stop it!” Baekhyun yelled out. “What gives you the right to treat a fellow human being like that?”

“He’s not a human being,” the man growled, raising Jongdae’s now exposed arm in the air. “Look!”

Baekhyun’s jaw dropped. There was a rubber band tied tightly around the middle his arm, cutting off the blood flow to his wrist, his hand, his fingers. While the bottom half of his arm was a sickly, pale color, the veins in his wrist so dark that they almost looked black, the top half of his arm was its usual tan shade. The contrast was unsettling, grotesque even. Bile rose in Baekhyun’s throat when he caught sight of the bloody bite marks on the cuff of Jongdae’s wrist.

“Jongdae, you…” he croaked, his throat suddenly going dry. “When did this happen?”

“Car ten,” Jongdae mumbled, yanking his arm back towards his body and slipping it back into the sleeve of his jacket. “I-- I just got scared. I saw what happened when Jongin and Zitao and the others got bit, and I didn’t want that for me, so I thought stopping the spread of the poison with a rubber band would work.”

Baekhyun stared at Jongdae. “Did it?” he asked in a whisper.

Jongdae shook his head.  
  
“This just proves it,” the man in the suit said. “We can’t have you all in the same car as the rest of us _healthy_ people. You need to go to the quarantine area. Now.”

The color drained out of Lu Han’s face. “But, Jongdae’s the only one who’s infected,” he said, his voice faltering at the edges. “Why can’t the rest of us--”

“ _Now_.”

Baekhyun knew they had lost the fight as soon as Lu Han-- the most cool, calm, and collected member of their little five member group-- let out a loud “Fuck!” and stormed toward the quarantine area himself, a tiny Sehun in tow behind him.

  


_11:27 a.m._

 

Lu Han couldn’t believe it. The one place he had tried to keep Sehun out of this entire trip was quarantine, and there they were now, stuck in a cramped train compartment between the “safe” car and a horde of flesh eating zombies.

“Sehun,” Lu Han asked in a low voice, making sure that no one else in the compartment could hear him. “Did you already know that Jongdae was infected?”

Sehun pressed his lips into a tight line. “I’m not supposed to tell you that,” he said, mimicking his father’s whisper.

Lu Han frowned. “Sehunnie, I’m your dad-- you can tell me.”

Sehun hesitated before taking a deep breath and launching into a story. He told Lu Han how he’d seen Jongdae scratching at his wrist a little while after he’d left the bathroom, how he’d confessed to Sehun about getting bitten while fighting one of the zombies, how he’d made Sehun “pinky promise” not to tell anyone.

“Oh, no,” Sehun said, mortified. “I’m breaking a pinky promise by telling you this.”

Despite how troubled he was by this new information, he chuckled at Sehun's superstitions. “It’s fine, Sehun, sometimes you need to break a few promises to get what you need.”

Sehun shook his head rapidly. “No, if you break a pinky promise, you’ll have bad luck for the rest of the day.” He stared at Lu Han with wide eyes. “The last thing we need right now is bad luck.”

In usual circumstances, Lu Han would’ve rolled his eyes playfully and reassured Sehun that bad luck didn’t exist. But, with the way things were going today, he wasn’t so sure anymore. “I don’t think our luck can get much worse,” he said, only half joking. When Sehun gave his dad an unimpressed look in response, Lu Han cleared his throat. “Anyway, is that why you were holding his hand earlier? Because you didn’t want anyone to find out?”

Sehun looked down at his lap, then nodded slowly. “It didn’t work,” he said sadly. “I could’ve done a better job of hiding him.”

“Sehun, why did you help him?” Lu Han asked, his voice a little pained. “He could’ve turned into one of those monsters without you realizing -- you might’ve died, and then you’d never get to see Mommy.”

“It was the right thing to do,” Sehun said stubbornly. “I’m okay with dying, as long as I get to help someone else.”

Lu Han felt a pang in his heart. “No, don’t ever say that,” he scolded sharply. “Because _I’m_ not okay with you dying.”

  


_11:30 a.m._

 

“You’re not going to make it, are you?”

Jongdae closed his eyes and sighed. “No,” he said with a small shake of his head. “I probably have fifteen minutes left, tops.”

Baekhyun swallowed the lump in his throat. “What happens after the fifteen minutes?”

“I turn into one of those things,” he said in an almost wistful voice. “Maybe try to take a bite out of your neck.”

“Woah, at least buy me dinner first,” Baekhyun joked weakly.

Jongdae let out a bitter laugh. “You know, I kinda regret not doing that earlier on.”

Baekhyun furrowed his brow. “What, buying me dinner?”

He was joking again, but as soon as Jongdae nodded, he felt another lump manifest in his throat. “Fuck, of course you would wait until you’re about to die to ask me out,” he said, trying to keep his tone light-hearted. Instead, his voice started wobbling like a hormonal teenager’s, and tears beaded up in the corners of his eyes. Before he knew it, Baekhyun was full out crying, sobbing into the crook of Jongdae’s neck.

“I don’t want to lose you, Jongdae,” he said with shaky, heaving breaths. “Please, don’t make me live without you.”

Jongdae placed a hand on the small of Baekhyun’s back and started massaging it, like he always did when he was comforting him. “Stop crying,” he mumbled. “You’re gonna make me cry.”

“I’m serious,” Baekhyun continued, pulling away from Jongdae’s neck to look straight at him. “I-- I think I’m in love with you. I think I’ve been in love with you for a long time now.”

Jongdae smirked. “And it took me dying for you to figure that out?”

Baekhyun let out a shaky laugh. “Shut up, asshole, let me have my moment.”

Jongdae’s smirk shifted into a fond smile. “If it helps, I think I'm in love with you too.”

Baekhyun sniffled and wiped tears away from his cheeks. “It helps a little,” he admitted with a similar smile.

  


_11:37 a.m._

 

_Attention passengers, as there is a bit of debris on the tracks, the train will be stopping here. Although Busan military station is only a fifteen minute walk from here, the tracks are infested with zombies. It is advised that you stick in a group and keep a weapon with you at all times. As your conductor, I wish every single one of you good luck._

  


_11:38 a.m._

 

Slowly, the train pulled to a stop. Sehun, who had been nestled into the crook of Lu Han’s elbow and napping there, jerked awake. “Are we at Busan?” he asked groggily.

“No, not yet,” Lu Han answered with a small smile. “This is as far as the train will take us -- we’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”

Sehun pouted, but didn’t complain. Maybe he was tired, or maybe he had finally realized that there was just too much to complain about. “Kyungsoo, Baekhyun,” Lu Han called out. He almost said Jongdae’s name too, until he remembered what had happened to him. “Do you two want to walk to Busan together?” he finished awkwardly.

Baekhyun shook his head. “I’m, um, going with Jongdae,” he said vaguely-- probably for Sehun’s sake. Kyungsoo glanced over at the two boys enviously, looking like he wished that he could’ve done the same thing with Chanyeol.

If someone were to ask Lu Han earlier that day how he felt about Chanyeol’s selfless sacrifice for Kyungsoo and Baekhyun’s desire to leave the world with Jongdae, he would’ve rolled his eyes and labeled them as weak, sappy idiots that were going to die sometime soon anyway. Right now, though, right now he felt like he understood their choices _just_ a little more. “What about you, Kyungsoo?” Lu Han asked.

Kyungsoo shrugged. “No reason not to,” he said dully. Kyungsoo wasn’t very useful to Lu Han’s survival now-- after Chanyeol's death, Kyungsoo practically dragged his feet everywhere instead of walking-- but Sehun seemed to like him a lot. And, really, who was Lu Han to refuse Sehun now?

“Alright, then,” Lu Han said. For the first time all day, he felt a wave of pure, unrelenting relief flood his body. After all they’d been through, they were finally going to be at Busan. Finally, he could give Sehun what he wanted from him. The thought made him smile and clutch at Sehun’s hand with a newfound energy. “Let’s go to Busan.”

  


_busan_

_12:07 p.m._

_the joker_

 

“Three figures spotted under the tunnel,” Junmyeon said in a crisp voice into his radio reciever. “Looks to be two adults and one child. Unable to identify their condition. Please advise on further action.”

He waited for the answer, finger dancing over the trigger. Finally, the intercom crackled on, a curt, “Kill them,” being his awaited reply. Junmyeon blinked nervously. “Are you sure, sir?” he asked.

That cold command was repeated from the intercom. “But, what if they’re survivors?” Junmyeon mumbled lowly.

“What if they aren’t?” Kris muttered from beside him. “I know you’re a good guy, Junmyeon-ssi, but don’t put the whole city at risk just because you’re afraid to do your job.”

Junmyeon nodded slowly, cleared his throat. “Roger,” he said into the reciever. “Targets acquired; preparing to shoot.”

He peered into the scope of his gun and aimed for the blonde-haired man. He swallowed thickly and took a deep breath, watching as the red dot lined up perfectly with the middle of his forehead. He could do this, he could do this, he could do this. These were mindless creatures who would destroy entire cities if Junmyeon didn’t kill them first. They didn’t deserve to be alive. They were zombies, monsters, _abominations_.

Then again, what if these three weren’t?

Junmyeon tried not to think about it too much as he pulled the trigger.

**Author's Note:**

> \- i'm sorry  
> \- (i'm not sorry)  
> \- come scream with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/peachenbaek) !!!


End file.
